Frist Wants Immigration Vote This Week
By HOPE YEN

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday he wants a full Senate vote on an immigration bill this week and believes that urgent action is needed despite sharp divisions over whether proposed legislation would amount to amnesty.

"There are 3 million people every year coming across our borders illegally. We don't know who they are; we don't know what their intentions are. We absolutely must address it," said Frist, R-Tenn. "I hope by Friday that we will have a bill on the floor that is comprehensive."

A chief sponsor of a House bill, meanwhile, also called on the Senate to avoid deadlock so lawmakers in both houses can start work on reaching a compromise "for our national security and our economic well-being."

"No bill will end up being the worst of all possible worlds," said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. "This will be tough, and it's the toughest thing that I've done in 37 years in elective public office. But it is an important priority."

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Yuma sector sees big jump in juvenile crossers
By Blake Schmidt, Sun Staff Writer

More than 12,000 of the 114,000 juvenile illegal immigrants who were arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol last fiscal year were detained in the Yuma sector, according to U.S. Border Patrol statistics.

The number of juveniles who were arrested in the Yuma sector increased 28 percent from the previous fiscal year, compared to a four percent increase nationwide.

The Mexican Consulate in Yuma repatriated more than 2,700 minors last fiscal year who had crossed the border without the accompaniment of a parent or guardian.

This year, it repatriated more than 700 unaccompanied minors — some of them as young as one year old, according to statistics from the Mexican Consulate.

Yuma sector Border Patrol spokeswoman Claudia Delgado said that agents have recently found illegal immigrants as young as four years old trying to cross the border alone.

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More youths attempt border crossing on their own
By Blake Schmidt, Sun Staff Writer
San Luis Rio Colorado, Son. — All of their belongings could have fit in one pocket.

A half-empty bag of M & Ms, a tube of lip balm, a couple of throat lozenges, a motion-sickness pill and a good-luck amulet sat drying out on the top bunk at Modulo de Atencion Para Menores Repatriada, a shelter for repatriated Mexican youths.

"I forgot to take them out of my pocket (before the clothes were washed)," said 16-year-old Alma, giggling.

She was the oldest of the four siblings who were all sprawled out on the bottom bunks.

Her younger siblings, Alejandra, 15, Mayra, 13, and Ramon, 12, lay silent. Motionless. Their bare feet hanging from the edge of the bed.

Their clothes were caked in dust, and they lost their shoes in the mud while trying to cross the border illegally two nights ago.

It was dusk, and they couldn't see where they were going as they crawled beneath shrubs and hid behind trees in the desert, Alma said.

They were escorted by a coyote, a human smuggler, who was to be paid by their parents, waiting for them in Salinas, Calif., when they arrived.

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A leftist leader in Mexico, too?
If presidential front-runner Obrador wins in July, it could alter US-Mexico ties.
By Danna Harman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

CANCÚN, MEXICO - As President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox, together with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, wrapped up their two-day summit in this Caribbean resort town, deeper cooperation on trade, energy, security, and immigration were all promised.

But what's really ahead for US-Mexico relations is not completely clear.

The tenor of the bilateral ties will certainly depend on the sort of immigration bill US lawmakers adopt in the months ahead. But future relations may also depend on another factor, or rather, another actor: Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The leftist leader of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) has consistently polled ahead of his rivals over the last year and is expected to win July 2 presidential elections here when Fox, constitutionally, must step down.

A former mayor of Mexico City who endeared himself to many with folksy speeches, handouts to the poor, and big public works projects - and a person sometimes compared to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez - Obrador is a frequent critic of various aspects of current Mexico-US ties. If elected, he would add to the growing number of leftist leaders in Latin America.

Claudio Gonzalez, president of the Center for Economic Studies of the Private Sector calls Obrador "a retrograde and dinosaur-like leftist" who would spook investors and threaten the nation's hard-won economic stability and close relations with the US. "If populism returns ... Mexico could be left friendless and in bankruptcy."

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Waving Mexican flag gave the wrong message

Our view: Reacting to student protests, community is more sensitive about foreign symbols, in part because of 9/11 attacks

When you want to relay an important message, clarity is vital. You don't want to send mixed signals or express your views in a way that can be misinterpreted or, even worse, seen as a threat.

We bring this up because protesters who have rallied against possible immigration reforms in the Legislature and Congress are apparently confusing a lot of people in our community.

In demonstrations and school walkouts in Tucson and other cities, the participants said they want to be contributing members of the United States. Then they shouted, "Viva Mexico."

They said they wanted to remain part of the American fabric. Then they waved Mexican flags.

They said they are willing to be assimilated into our culture and learn our language. But many of their placards were written in Spanish.

There were also American flags, English chants and English placards at these demonstrations. But if the goal of the protests was to sway people toward supporting immigrant rights, why risk alienating others with symbols and words that are not American?

When you are seeking allies, it helps not to create foes.

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Millions overstay legal visas while U.S. focuses on illegals
By TERESA BORDEN
Cox News Service

ATLANTA — As the debate over the 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States continues in the Senate, a large group is getting overlooked: people who enter on legal visas and then never leave.

Known as visa overstays, these visitors make up between a third and a half of the illegal immigrants in this country, according to government reports — between 4 million and 6 million people.

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Senate bill proposes broad illegal alien amnesty

By Charles Hurt
The Washington Times

The immigration bill now under consideration in the Senate would grant even a broader amnesty to illegal aliens than similar legislation did in 1986, conservatives say, and would make hundreds of thousands of illegal residents eligible for in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.

"It should be called 'No Illegal Alien Left Behind,' " said Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican.

In 1986, Congress granted amnesty to 2.7 million illegal aliens. Current legislation would allow an estimated 11 million illegal aliens to continue working in the U.S. while applying for full citizenship.

Backers of the current legislation say it's not amnesty because the illegals would be fined $2,000. But opponents say it is amnesty because the illegals won't be sent home as required under current federal law.

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Hayworth 'hates' to say it, but . . .

Rep. J.D. Hayworth says he hates to tell anyone "I told you so."

"But I told you so," said the Arizona Republican on Thursday. He did so after House Republican leaders began signaling they may now consider a guest-worker bill, after all, just as the Senate has started to do.

Back in December, most of Hayworth's Republican colleagues in the House were beating their chests about having just passed a tough border-enforcement bill in which they refused to include any guest-worker provision for foreign workers or plan to let an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants gain legal status.

Hayworth, who voted against that bill, said then that he believed the measure still did not go far enough toward stemming the tide of undocumented immigration, and that more "enforcement teeth" were needed.